The Dallas City Council passed Wednesday new restrictions that bar hydraulic fracturing within 1,500 feet of a home, school, church, and other protected areas. The new rules effectively ban the practice within the city.

The council approved the ordinance in a vote of 9-6, with Mayor
Mike Rawlings voting for it.

The city is on the edge of the Barnett Shale area, predicted to
be a treasure trove of onshore natural gas reserves. However, the
new limit placed on hydraulic fracturing - known as fracking -
effectively bans the practice.

“[W]e might as well save a lot of paper and write a one-line
ordinance that says there will be no gas drilling in the city of
Dallas,” said council member Lee Kleinman, who opposed the
measure. “That would be a much easier ordinance to
have.”

A gas industry representative for Trinity East, a Barnett Shale
gas company that was prepared to drill, lamented the measure as a
death for prospects in Dallas.

“You just can’t drill under these conditions,” said
Dallas Cothrum, according to CBS DFW. “It’d require more than
250-acres of property and in an urban area it’s just not
possible.”

Petroleum engineer Bill Crowder of Dallas indicated that the
economic and legal wrangling over fracking in the city is not yet
over.

“I want you to look me in the eye next February or
March,” he said, according to the Dallas Morning News,
“when I ask you, ‘What the heck were you thinking?’”

Another council member, who supported the limits, said the
ordinance doesn’t ban drilling, but is aimed at keeping residents
safe.

“I think this is about making sure people are protected in
their neighborhoods,” council member Carolyn Davis said,
according to KERA News. “It is the right thing to do.”

The new ordinance keeps protections on parkland and flood plains,
though KERA News reported that the ordinance does allow for
drilling in parks if certain requirements are followed and the
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department gives its mandatory approval.

The council also passed Wednesday an amendment that calls for a
two-thirds majority vote to override the measure.

Hydraulic fracking is the highly controversial process of
injecting water, sand, and various chemicals into layers of rock
in hopes of releasing oil and gas deep underground. The practice
is opposed worldwide, as shown by global protests against
fracking in October, for its damning environmental impacts.

Supporters say it brings jobs and opportunities for energy
independence, though detractors have pointed to exaggerated
employment claims.

The latest move by Dallas highlights similar aims in other cities
to ban fracking. Voters in four cities in the state of Colorado
recently succeeded in either banning or suspending hydraulic
fracturing, despite heavy spending by the oil and gas industry to
the tune of $870,000 to defeat the measures.

All four of those measures passed in Colorado will face legal
challenges
by the fracking industry along with the office of Governor John
Hickenlooper, which has expressed the position that the
municipalities lack the authority to determine the use of the
state’s natural resources.